In Hong Kong this year, it is a foregone conclusion that the box office will fall sharply compared with last year. The total box office in the first eight months was only 400 million Hong Kong dollars, a decrease of nearly 300 million Hong Kong dollars compared with the same period last year.

However, although the impact of political turmoil on the box office is not the main reason for the sharp decline in the box office of Hong Kong films this year. Hong Kong's three major film giants have reduced the filming of films this year, especially blockbusters with strong box office appeal have been cut to only one per company compared to previous years, which is also a very important reason. In addition, a large number of people in the film industry have given up making films to participate in politics, resulting in many good scripts not being able to contact people to shoot, which should also be a reason, although this reason is currently in Hong Kong, I am afraid that only Lin Xiaozhi himself will think so.

The release of "Friends" made the Hong Kong film critics a little lively for a few days, for this film that won the special recommendation at the Venice Film Festival a month ago, especially without a test screening, this movie that made 20 million Hong Kong dollars in foreign cities really aroused the curiosity of many people, and the first day of release came, when Debao sent the box office statistics on the first day to New Asia, Lin Xiaozhi himself was also surprised.

The box office on the first day was 100,000 Hong Kong dollars, and a black humor movie could deliver this result, which really surprised him, and also made the director of the film, Ye Weixin, very excited.

The film critics gave high praise to the film, and the well-known Hong Kong film critic Qi Jiashi gave a professional film review in the "Film Fortnightly".

"'Friends' is a story about three friends after getting a windfall, and I was very interested in this film directed by the young generation director of New Asia Ye Weixin as early as a month ago, but I didn't expect that it would make me wait for four or five months to see this movie come out. The film begins with a dark comedy look, with three friends who live together looking for a fourth tenant for an empty room, and their neighbors are just as eccentric and special as they are. So people who come to the house to find themselves have to face odd interviews from three people at the same time, or it is more appropriate to say that it is more difficult. When one was finally chosen, he died naked in his bed shortly after moving in, leaving a large box of banknotes under the bed......"

"But then the plot became too dark and not comedy at all. The three men decided to leave the banknotes behind and destroy the body. They devised a very thorough plan to destroy the corpses, sawing off the limbs of the corpses and burning them to eliminate fingerprints, knocking out the teeth of the dead with hammers, and burying the remaining corpses in the earth. However, no one wanted to carry out this plan, so it could only be decided by lot. The excessive blood destroyed the reason of the chosen one, and he began to become ferocious and violent, waiting for the box of bills. The lure of money also begins to disintegrate the feelings between the three people. The deceased's accomplices and the police also came to the door. By the time the shallow burial bodies are discovered, the three former close friends finally fall apart and begin to kill each other. ”

"A thought-provoking movie, although in the industry, Ye Weixin is just a young generation of directors who have just debuted. But his directing skills should not be underestimated, I have watched his past two works, in "Color is Empty" is not obvious, but in the film "Maoshan Taoist Fighting Zombies", the film by the cinematographer shows an amazing talent for camera capture. And this talent has been further strengthened in "Friends", the camera in his hands has been very creative, the camera switching and perspective are often unimaginable, but not obscure, but with a hint of almost cruel humor, people can read something after laughing"

"In the film industry, there is no shortage of talented newcomers. This movie made me reacquaint myself with two newcomers who have just entered the film industry, Ye Weixin and Lin Xiaozhi. The first time I knew the name Ye Weixin was during the release of a best-selling tertiary film "Color is Empty" at the beginning of the year, these three words appeared in the director's column, but did not appear in the publicity and New Asia's celebration, so that everyone thought that it was another young man from a wealthy family named Lin Xiaozhi who took away that glory and reputation from him, but later what we got was as New Asia replied, this young man was indeed injured in a filming accident and was forced to recuperate for several months, and he did not recover until the middle of this year. ”

"Talented people will never be covered by dark clouds and twists and turns, and there is no doubt that Ye Weixin is such a person. His talent was revealed in "Color is Emptiness", and the part of the first half of New Asia that was promoted by him was full of aura and humor, and this talent was also inherited by his second independent film "Friends", which can bring a niche film to a humorous black humor to the elegant and vulgar appreciation, so that I am very fortunate that another character director in Hong Kong was born."

I don't know if other people were surprised or silent when they found the three words Hu Xiaozhi in the screenwriting column of the movie when they watched this movie. But when the author found these three words again in the screenwriter column, in addition to surprise and surprise, there was also a bit of joy and excitement. ”

"This year's Hong Kong is shrouded in a storm in the north, and there is a lack of topics in the entertainment industry, but there is never a shortage of topics. Gossip such as XXX dating XX and XX breaking up with XXX has never been paid much attention to by the author. But in this year's entertainment news, Rao is the author will often choose to turn it directly, and the three words seem to be under a spell, which has become the author's deepest impression of the entertainment editions of major newspapers and magazines this year. ”

"A young man from a wealthy family, and even a member of the gentlemen, accidentally broke into the entertainment industry. He has gained media attention in his own right, and he has a lot of topicality. However, when this young man, who can write, direct, and act, only took a little more than a year in his hands to grow a leather bag film company that was on the verge of bankruptcy and was considered a burden into one of the few giants in Hong Kong. His talent, his scandals, his courage to ignore the creed of the wealthy family to create and shoot a tertiary film, and his hype and publicity methods that have been admired by countless people in the advertising and media industry No one can deny that he has become one of the billionaires in Hong Kong in just over a year, and has become the most dazzling figure in the entertainment industry this year...... However, there are still people who doubt that these scripts marked with Lin Xiaozhi's creation are really from him? ”

The author can't answer this question. But it is undeniable that New Asia has given birth to another good movie, congratulations to New Asia, congratulations to Lin Xiaozhi, and especially to the director who directed this film - Mr. Ye Weixin"

In Hong Kong, the influence of Cinema Fortnight is undeniable, with a circulation of more than 100,000 copies per issue, which is one of the few in Hong Kong. The influence in Hong Kong is naturally not small, and the optimism of "Film Fortnightly" can also have a certain effect on boosting the box office of "Friends".

In fact, it is not "Film Fortnightly" that is optimistic about the movie "Friends", "Cheng Pao": "It is undeniable that this is a good movie with endless evocativeness, but the style of black humor is too dark, and the audience may not buy it, and they are not optimistic about its box office"

"It's rare for pie to fall from the sky, and what is even more strange and ironic is how three people share the food. "Friends", a thought-provoking film" - Sing Tao Daily

"Cheng Pao": "Human nature is portrayed very wonderfully, and the plot, actors, scenes, and atmosphere are handled tightly and wonderfully. I recommend thinking calmly."

There is a saying that it is difficult to reconcile, some people are optimistic about it, and some people are unhappy, to put it bluntly, it is nothing more than a topic and news.

One such newspaper is the Oriental Daily, a newspaper that has rarely been able to get first-hand information about New Asia lately, and there seems to have been a slight change in attitude towards Mr. Lin. It's just that the industry is so multimedia and film critics praise "Friends", and this movie has just returned from the Venice Film Festival bouquet, "Oriental Daily" cleverly did not choose to splash ink directly, but pointed the arrow to another topic.

"Yip Wai Shun's talent is amazing and at the same time feels so natural, as the director who once directed and filmed the film "Color is Empty" with a box office of nearly 30 million Hong Kong dollars, his talent is naturally undoubted. Not long ago, the film ended its screening in Taiwan and Singapore. In Taiwan, "Color is Empty" received an excellent box office of NT$31.49 million (about HK$10.37 million); In Singapore, "Color is Empty" also unexpectedly took over Cheng Long's "Miracle", which had just been painted, and became the second Hong Kong film to receive a great response in Singapore this year with 4.16 million Singapore dollars (about 33 UU more than Hong Kong dollars), second only to "Miracle" of 5.57 million Singapore dollars (about

HK$44.5 million) ......"

"Oriental Daily" never mentioned that the script of "Friend" came from Lin Xiaozhi, and seemed to deliberately guide its readers to wonder whether Lin Xiaozhi had forcibly usurped Ye Weixin's honor in filming "Color is Empty". As the newspaper with the largest circulation in Hong Kong, it has also caused a lot of discussion for a while.

Ye Weixin's happiness only lasted for three or four days, and then even sank. Lin Xiaozhi's previous worries were correct, the black humor type of movie is not widely available in Hong Kong, Rao is Ye Weixin's "Friend" is a classic, but its single-day box office of more than one million only lasted for three days, and on the fourth day of release, the box office of "Friend" fell to RR million Hong Kong dollars, and then it was never higher than UU million Hong Kong dollars, and when the box office came out seven days after its release, its box office in Hong Kong was close to UU 00,000 Hong Kong dollars, reaching 590,000 Hong Kong dollars.

On the seventh day of release, the box office fell to only more than UU, which really made the Debao Cinema Line nervous, and Cen Jianxun even hung up the phone to Lin Xiaozhi in person, telling him that if this decline continues, the Debao Cinema Line will consider reducing the previously agreed four-week release time to three weeks, or even shorter.

Ye Weixin's mood fell into a trough because of the notice from Debao Cinema, but it failed to affect Lin Xiaozhi's mood. In his opinion, this film has made a lot of money just by selling the overseas distribution rights of Xinya, and the Southeast Asian and Taiwan distribution rights of "Friends" were also bought by Li Guoxing's Meiya and Cai Songlin's scholar companies for 00,000 Hong Kong dollars and P00,000 Hong Kong dollars respectively.

Song Nianhui finally chose to sell the RMB he exchanged for on the black market to Lin Xiaozhi at a ratio of l:5, and chose to appear decisively. He is a person who is extremely good at finance, but he does not have the grasp of the direction of history of the reborn, and he does not dare to delay it anymore after losing a lot. In the end, Lin Xiaozhi paid more than 14 million Hong Kong dollars to obtain Song Nianhui and his team at a ratio of almost l:, and in the past few months, nearly 120 million yuan from the black market could not be cashed out and could not be circulated, and now it is equivalent to the same yuan as waste paper.

However, Mr. Lam's ambitions have not stopped with the huge amount of money that will regain purchasing power as the mainland survives the crisis in the future.

When Meiya became a shareholder of New Asia, Lin Xiaozhi had just earned nearly 40 million yuan from the two movies "Water Margin" and "Liao Zhai Yan Tan". Coupled with the 50 million Hong Kong dollars paid to him by Li Guoxing, he originally had more than 80 million Hong Kong dollars in funds. After buying more than half of the shares of Disheng Records and Xinyibao in his private name, and paying a down payment of up to 3 million Hong Kong dollars for signing Chen Baiqiang, he paid more than 30 million Hong Kong dollars, and his private treasury has only more than 47 million Hong Kong dollars left. After using more than 14UU of more than 14 Hong Kong dollars as a pick-up man, his private treasury has only about 334 million left.

However, Lin Xiaozhi not only invested all the funds in the black market, and entrusted Song Nianhui, who is proficient in this way, to operate for him to absorb the now worthless RMB, but also used his absolute financial control in New Asia to temporarily move the 30 million interest-free loan that Meiya had just allocated to New Asia's account for black market gambling. Thanks to the recent big profit of the movie "Friend", and at the same time, there was still about 10 million cash flow in Xinya's financial account, which was the remaining funds after the sale of the rights of the two films "Water Margin" and "Liao Zhai Yan Tan" left by him according to the agreement when Meiya became a shareholder.

So because of his gambling on the black market, he himself once again lived a stressful life with no money to use. However, New Asia's life is not difficult, and they still have more than 30 million funds to spend on the filming of the movie.